Hi Everyone.
I just uploaded the first installment on what I plan to be a series of tutorials that should provide a quick and easy way to get up to speed with Pilot2ATC. We'll be adding to these over time, with lots of screenshots and some tips and tricks of P2A along the way!
Many of you have struggled with getting in the air the first time, so this first installment will get you from Clearance Delivery through first contact with Oakland Center in a short IFR flight from San Jose, California to Oakland, California. Probably not a good one for airliners, but grab a good GA plane and take the plunge!
You can find it on the Downloads page www.pilot2atc.com/download Just press the View Test Flights button to download the PDF.
Enjoy
Dave

Hi everyone.
I really appreciate all the interest in the V2.0 Beta release. It should be out in a matter of hours, not weeks. Pushing hard to get it ready before the weekend.
I opened this thread so we can have a single place to go for questions and information on the status of the V2 Beta.
So a few questions that have come up elsewhere are worth mentioning here:
1) The upgrade to V2.0 is Free to existing users
2) The Beta code will only be available initially to current V1 users. This will avoid having the initial environment setup issues, like language pack installation, Windows settings, etc. that could inhibit our ability to do a "laser focused" V2 Beta testing effort.
3) There will be no trial version of V2 until after the Beta is over.
4) V1 will remain available, as it is with a 15 day trial, during the Beta. This will allow interested users a chance to be sure their environment can support Pilot2ATC before making any financial outlays.
5) If you try V1 and get it up and running and then would like to joint the Beta, purchase it and you will be given a free upgrade, following the process yet to be announced. BUT PLEASE BE SURE V1 works and you have it running well in you environment before purchasing it.
6) The process to receive the free upgrade is simple and will involve sending me an email with your V1 License Key and me sending back a V2 License Key. PLEASE DO NOT SEND the emails yet. I will post here the details of the process once the code is available.
I have opened a dedicated Sub-Forum for reporting bugs found in V2. This should be used only for reporting bugs.
I will be opening a separate thread for comments/feature enhancement requests for V2 after the Beta is available. That thread will be pinned here in the main support forum.
So please use this thread for any questions you might have regarding the Beta Program.
Thanks again for all the interest,
Dave

Just uploaded version 1.3 of Pilot to ATC. Some of the new features are
AI Traffic alerts
AI Ground and Airborne Traffic display on maps
Enhanced VFR Flight Experience
Pilot selection of Runways
More accurate Grammar Helper and Practice Recognizer
And, of course, some bug fixes
If you downloaded the preview, please download the 1.3 Update as it fixes some minor bugs that were in the preview. Also, the documentation available on the download page has been updated.
Enjoy,
Dave

Hi All!
I just posted a short video of the Pre-Beta Version 2.0 to give you an idea of what it will be.
https://youtu.be/LjuEyhwf528
It was a quick and dirty video, but have a look and let us know what you think of the new features and the new look and feel.
Thanks,
Dave

Hello all,
I just returned to XP 11.02 after 3 very frustrating days with 11.05r2. First, my system - ASUS G752 gaming laptop with i7 7777 and 16GB with nVidia 1070 with 8GB. It allows me to run with everything maxed out. My plugins are xEnviro, PlaneCommand (tell your copilot to make adjustments to the plane), various small Lua scripts, and Pilot2ATC. That last one isn't really a plugin, but a stand alone program that communicates with XP via XPUIP. I also use at times VfrFlight which communicates with XP via a network address.
THE PROBLEM: I set up my flightplans with Pilot2ATC and transfer them to the GPS in the plane. P2A also has a moving map, so I minimize it when I am using the plane and call it up over XP from time to time to see the map. After the newest beta came out, XP start crashing after a while into a flight. The trigger for this was always bringing P2A up on the screen. XP would suddenly give me the little dialog box "XP cannot continue..." and then close. The log.txt did not reveal anything interesting. It was reporting normal events and then suddenly "XP has crashed" without any reasons why. Opening P2A was the cause, although VfrFlight would also do it to a lesser extent. At times, instead of crashing XP, P2A would get sluggish, display a black map, or crash totally. Mostly XP crashed.
I could really force more rapid crashes by using a more complex airplane. The Eclipse 550 has a very complex navigation system with SASL and Lua scripts galore. It takes forever to load. When I use this plane, the crashes are much more frequent. I can fly the Aerosphere Arrow IV turbo for quite a while before crashing and the same with the Carenado Mooney. But the result is the same. I contacted AeroBask, makers of the Eclipse and they confirm that there have been many problems with the new beta - suggesting return to 11.02.
So today, I went back to 11.02r2 and just finished a very long flight without the slightest hiccup. I filed a bug report with LR, but mention it here in case someone else has had a similar experience.

Evening everyone, So I recently purchased FS Global Real Weather and to be honest i don't really like the whole integration process. I like everything to be seamless and work in the background like ActiveSky. With FS global Real Weather you have to start the program then run the weather then start the sim then inject the weather, Yea not for me. So my question is, if I just use the normal default weather download from with in Xplane 11 and then I choose Noaa weather option for pilot2atc will there be a difference between the two programs? so will pilot2atc atis read out the same atis as the sim? or will there be a big difference? forgot to mention that I am also using skymaxx pro 4.6 and real weather connector.
Thank You

I am nearing the end of my trial period and will be purchasing the full version, even though I have encountered a few hiccups here and there. I am sure some of them are my own configuration problems or the lack of of knowledge on how to properly use P2A.
1. I am unable to get my PTT or SayIt to work from my Saitek Yoke. I know several have this problem. I have checked that no other buttons are assigned to it, I run P2A in admin mode and am still unable to get it to work. I have managed to get a keyboard hotkey to work, but nothing from my Saitek or from another Joystick option as well.
2. P2A does not load flight plan into the GPS on FSX:SE. I always have to export as a .pln and then load using the flight planner. Would be nice if and when I hit the "File" button, that it loaded into the sim, or maybe have a separate button that would then push the plan into the sim incase some people prefer to manually load their GPS.
3. I do my initial flight planning in ForeFlight and SimBrief most of the time. It would be nice to be able to input Departure field (KIDP), Destination field (KLLU), and a Route field (TYROE V516 OSW V161 NALLY V132 NASHE), from that point you can look up and enter the approach.
(I am fairly new to flying and sims, so my procedures may be incorrect, I am just trying to do what I think is correct)
4. I was doing the flight listed above and had a few problems and issues along the way. I setup the route as listed and had selected RWY 03 at KLLU, my sim does not have the new RWY35/17, so RWY 03/21 are my only options. When I pull the info for KLLU, it show the active runway as 35, it would be nice if it knew I had no RWY 35 and would show a more appropriate choice. This begins a series of problems. I go ahead and continue my planning with RWY 03 and select approach of ZOTRI. I begin my flight and tune to KIDP ClrDel 121.65 and request my clearance, receive my squawk code, everything goes as planned. Normally at this point I would want to switch over to a ground freq, but since KIDP doesn't have one, my only option would be CTAF/UNICOM, and so I switch to that so I can announce taxi and takeoff runway. I tune to KIDP UNI 123.05 but when I use SayIt, I don't see any options for announcing my taxi nor my runway intentions. So basically I just pull out to the runway without saying anything and once I am ready for takeoff I use report/pattendeparture to announce my takeoff. Once I take off, I tune to my controlling center which would be Kansas City, so I tune to Ctr 132.9, and once I am inflight, I use Report/Checkin or Report/ToAltitude. I am not sure when to request VFR flight following as I have never had P2A successfully respond to that request. I had to do this several times before I got a response. Sometimes I never get a response, but after a few attempts this time, I finally get Radar Contact. So I continue on my flight, receive a few advisories along the way, I can not remember if I change centers or not, but as I was approaching NASHE and about to begin my procedures, I receive that I am 11 miles from LAMAR MUNICIPAL and radar service is terminated. Freq change to local traffic advisory approved. So at this point, I am looking at changing to the tower to announce my approach, but KLLU doesn't have a tower so I change to KLLU Mult 122.9 and try to announce my approach, SayIt didn't have any options, all the fields were blank, so I switch to Ctr 128.6 and am able to announce after scrolling through the countless options under Request/Approach, that area needs some work, everything wants to announce approach for RWY35 instead of RWY03 which is in my flight plan. I basically had no way of announcing my approach, I eventually picked one and announced I am landing on RWY35 but come in on RWY03, I then get instruction to contact Ctr 128.6 which I am already on, more than once have I had a Ctr send me to itself, anyway, I announce field in sight and am instructed to contact tower on 119.8, so I tune to 119.8, which doesn't come up as anything within P2A, and is not on the info tab. Here I am about to land and am reaching over to dial in a freq that I wasn't expecting, so I hurry up and get it put in, and look at my SayIt options, I look through the patternlocation and everything as ActiveDestinationRunway which is spitting out RWY35, so I hurriedly look at LandingIntention and select on final for full stop. I do not hear anything back on this freq but go ahead and land. Once on the ground and clear of the runway, I select clear of active, which is the nearest thing to the runway I am on, but just a clear of runway would be nice. I am probably misusing this as it is in patternlocation and I am using it as I taxi off the runway. I taxi to a parking spot and shut down my aircraft, of course no where are there any options to announce any taxi procedures at this airport. I am sure there are countless things I did wrong as I am still learning whats the correct way to conduct a flight, but this is what I did, and the problems I had.
5. Sometimes when I fly IFR, I fly with FSE and usually have my plane fairly full and use a low vertical climb as to not stall my plane and they constantly hammer me about expediting my climb. Is there an adjustment I can make to minimize this?
Lithimis

Like most people I turned off the default over caffeinated X-Plane 11 ATC on day 2. I tried 124thATC and Pilot2ATC and I am liking both after a month of use. Here is a review video I created for Pilot2ATC .

I am a World Traffic user and route designer. I make Airport Operations files always for my airports. Quite often, on long flights, by the time I get to the destination the weather has changed and the AI are using the flow profile I programmed file the weather scenario at hand. This quite often ends up being the opposite runway I filed with my flight plan. What is the correct method of requesting a different approach runway? The way suggested in the SayIt prompt didn't do anything. The controller just told me to keep descending via the Star but when he handed me over to approach no runway change was given. They still had me landing opposite way of traffic. I then tried changing the Approach type and refiling. While this update the flight plan and the moving map display.. the controller still told me to land on the opposite runway.
Is there a way to get the controller to issue you a different runway that I missed in the manual while on an IFR flight?

For those of you who have struggled with having your speech recognized, this newest update might make the difference.
In previous versions, the default initial speech wait time was very short (half a second) and if you did not begin speaking in that time, the recognizer engine stopped listening. This time can be set by you in the configuration window, but if you left the default, you may have had very poor results in your attempts to be recognized.
The default is now 1.5 seconds (30%), so you can press the PTT button and have up to 1.5 seconds to start talking. If you hesitate longer than this, just go to the config window Voice Recognition tab and set the Speech Recognition Initial Silence Timeout to something like 50% and experiment.
The default End Silence Timeout is 1.0 seconds. If you tend to hesitate in your radio call, it could cause the recognizer to stop recognizing before you are done speaking. If this happens, set the Speech Recognition End Silence Timeout to a higher percent, say 40% (2 seconds).
If you tried the trial before and would like a new go at it, just send me a note (admin@pilot2atc.com) with your hardware ID from the Registration screen and I'll give you another 15 day trial !
Enjoy!
Dave

Hi everyone.
Just uploaded a preview of 1.3.0.2. It includes the long awaited SID/STAR capability along with some other new features:
SID / STAR Support
Fly Full Route Feature
Updated Flight Plan Validation Logic
Fix to Voice Speed and Testing Buttons
Other minor fixes or enhancements
The User's guide and the Test Flight Tutorial have been updated to reflect the new features, so be sure to read through that before launching your first flight in the new world.
Please report any problems to me at admin@pilot2atc.com.
Enjoy
Dave

Hello,
for some reason I'm not getting any response from the ATC. Also during startup I get following error :
Which is odd because as you can see I in fact do have English installed and set as default (I have my native language pack installed as well but that should not be a problem since it's not default, right? ) :
But for some reason I do not get any response from the ATC at all. I'm using the text "SayIt" interface as I don't have mic setup, plus I don't really want to be talking to my computer, text interface is fine :-)
Also the test in config does not work. The voice tests work fine, I even get ATIS response when I tune in ATIS on radio (P2ATC set to handle ATIS) but no response from any actual controllers :
I'm flying IXEG 733 which uses a lot of custom systems so just to make sure it's not blocked by battery and so on I set P2ATC to ignore those :
Any ideas pls ?
PS: My flight plan seems fine. It's validated and filed. Also I'm using LKTB Gnd to try to get the clearance as there is no dedicated clearance frequency but that is not the issue - I tried them all, I get response from none.
PS2: I also tried running the P2ATC as administrator and also in Win7 compatibility mode (just in case). No luck.

Hello everyone!
Welcome to the Pilot2ATC Users Forum, a place for us to provide announcements, information and support to you about Pilot2ATC and for you to post suggestions, ask questions and provide tips and techniques for getting the most out of Pilot2ATC.
Thanks to all of you for your enthusiasm and support the last several weeks as we launched the product and your great ideas that let us continue to improve it.
I look forward to lots of activity here on the AVSIM Pilot2ATC forum and great ideas for improving our product and your experience.
Thanks,
Dave

Hello Everyone.
I just uploaded version 1.4 as a preview. I will be making it the standard download as soon as I get the documentation updated.
It adds some new functionality, but more importantly, it improves speech recognition accuracy! This should reduce some of the frustration we've all been feeling.
Some key features introduced in 1.3.0.2 and 1.4 are:
Improved Speech Recognition
Fly SID / STAR Option
Fly Full Route Option
TOD (Top of Descent) Calculations and Controlled Descents
Smoother IFR Vectors to Final
User Option to Increase / Decrease Standard Pattern Sizes
Enhanced Grammar Helper Practice Screen
Ability to Add New Controllers to an Airport
Download and Enjoy!
Dave

Hello everyone,
I'm fairly new to flying civil sims. I fly with XP11 in combination with Pilot2ATC.
I have a problem with the active runway at EHAM. P2A always picks 18R as active for take off and landing.
Today I was planning to fly from EHAM to EGLL. I let Pilot2ATC choose the runway + SIDS and Stars, the option "force pilot runway selection" is unchecked. I use X-Plane's ATIS. The weather in P2A is set to sim weather, XP11 tracks realtime weather.
The wind were around 230 35 knots, the XP ATIS told me to expect runway 24 / 22 for departure. Seems correct.
But when I told P2A that I was "ready to copy", it directed me to runway 18R again. This seems a bit strange to me, looking at the winds.
The weather reports in P2A shows the correct wind conditions.
Can anyone tell what I am doing wrong? Thanks in advance.

Hi Everyone.
Just uploaded the first update to version 1.3.
In addition to some bug fixes, it has an improved Grammar Helper and adds Sample Phrases that make it easier to put the Grammar Help to use!
Also, check out my post on Feature Roadmap. It'll give you an idea of what's coming in the future. Working on the Database updates right now.
Enjoy,
Dave

I have just purchased pilot2atc recently, and when I attempted to do a flight, I could not get a response from the clearance delivery controller. I am using the say it function and I can hear the pilot request clearance, but there is no response. I have the same automated voice set for both the controller and pilot and I have my flight plane validated and filed. I'm sure its an issue with my configuration o.f the program and it's not a bug but I'm not sure. Any suggestions?

Weird phenomenon... Whenever I get P2A ATC speech, my Windows sound level for the P2A application is dropped to 60% of maximum. I noticed this right after the new AIRAC format revision (2.2.1.7), so this may be a new bug. Before reporting it as such, seeing if anyone here has this issue.
Further details...
This happens with my headset (logitech G933) or system speakers, so it's not related to a particular sound device. In the example below, I set the general volume level of the headset to 50% and the P2A application level to match it at 50%. With any audio from P2A, the level instantly drops to 30%. If the general and app levels are at 100%, the app level instantly drops to 60%., etc. And yes, if I set the app volume at a lower level, such as 20%, the volume will instantly jump to the 60% of maximum level.
I have checked and tried all Windows related options in Sound settings, including disabling volume suppression for communication.
Anybody else getting this? Ideas?
As an aside, when I open the COM frequency adjustment window (by clicking on STBY channel), I see Volume "Mute", "Dn", and "Up" buttons, but these do not seem to affect the volume at all. Is there another place for volume to controlled/enabled within P2A that I have not yet found?